Size / / /

Yes, Pluto is small.

Near Jupiter, he'd be one

of the myriad masses,

smaller than Titan, Triton, et. al.

Uneven, unbalanced, elliptical,

not even the farthest out,

when he hides within the seas.

But consider, if you will

keeping Pluto a planet.

For consider, if you will,

this: would you rather death

remain the farthest god,

outer edge of the norm,

be given titles undue, due

to his chill and final powers?

Or would you rather death

be one of many Kuiper bodies

slowly infiltrating our system,

a thousand thousand deaths

minute, uneven, unfair

drifting into the family,

until all our rounded,

sunlit orbits fill with tiny,

icy deaths intrusive that

flare and strike unwarranted?

Let's keep Pluto a planet,

shall we then?

For the sake of a single death.




Any rumors you've heard about Greg Beatty's time at Clarion West 2000 are probably true. Greg (email Greg) publishes everything from poetry about stars to reviews of books that don't exist. Greg Beatty lives in Bellingham, Washington, where he tries, unsuccessfully, to stay dry. Greg recently got married. You can read more by Greg in our Archives.
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16 Mar 2026

The garden is the resting place of your vulnerabilities; there’s a reason you’ve left them here instead of carrying them with you. Typically you enter hardened and hurried, beelining straight for the correct plot and quickly releasing whatever is clutched in your hand without a second thought—today, an attempted weaving of leather and lace, strength and suppleness that your body cannot figure out how to wear, nor your words to narrate.
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As part of a collective of African writers who have created an Afrocentric Sauútiverse of five planets, two suns and a spirit moon, a world of science and fantasy, where there is no written language, we play with technology and sound magic to scrutinise the world as we know it, and use speculative fiction as a response to our world. 
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